A new publication co-authored by Dr. Hagai Tapiro and Prof. Yisrael Parmet.

So often are we reminded about distraction from devices, cell phones or earphones. Yet, the environment we walk in can also have a detrimental effect on our road crossing safety. In this study we show that:

Distractions in the road environment put pedestrians at risk when crossing the road.

Pedestrian’s visual attention is affected by the façade of the street.

Younger children are at higher risk when distracted.

Visual distractions are more detrimental than auditory distractions.

Abstract: Pedestrians are subject to an increasing number of stimuli and distractions derived from the roadside environment. Although the effect of distractions on child road crossing ability was recognized, there has been no systematic exploration of the effects of roadside distractions on child road crossing behavior. This work was aimed at studying the effect of roadside distractions on pedestrian road crossing behavior, focusing on elementary school-aged children, who are less capable of making a safe road crossing decision and are more vulnerable to the effect of distractions. Three types of audio distractions (a. sudden, momentary, and prominent noise, b. multiplicity of auditory elements, and c. continuous loud noise) and similar three types of visual distractions were pre-defined. Fifty-two children (aged 7–13) and adults arrived at the dome virtual reality laboratory and viewed 20 simulated crossing scenarios, embedded with visual and auditory distractions, and decided on the appropriate time to start crossing the virtual road. The results demonstrate that when exposed to environmental distractions, participants chose smaller crossing gaps, took more time to make crossing decisions, were slower to respond to the crossing opportunity, and allocated less visual attention to the peripheral regions of the road. Those effects were age related, and affected younger participants more significantly. Furthermore, visual distractions affected pedestrian behavior more than auditory type distractions. This study highlights an issue not yet adequately addressed, and the results should be considered by transportation professionals, and road safety educators, so better road safety programs to educate children can be created.

Link to the manuscript: Anyone clicking on this link before May 19, 2018 will be taken directly to the final version of your article on ScienceDirect. No sign up, registration or fees are required – they can simply click and read.https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1Wobl3IVV9Z8ir

Child pedestrians are highly represented in fatal and severe road crashes and differ in their crossing behavior from adults. Although many children carry cell phones, the effect that cell phone conversations have on children’s crossing behavior has not been thoroughly examined. A comparison of children and adult pedestrians’ crossing behavior while engaged in cell phone conversations was conducted. In a semi-immersive virtual environment simulating a typical city, 14 adults and 38 children (11 children aged 7-8; 18 aged 9-10 and 9 aged 11-13), experienced road crossing related traffic-scene scenarios. They were requested to press a response button whenever they felt it was safe to cross. Eye movements were tracked. Results have shown that all age groups’ crossing behaviors were affected by cell phone conversations. When busy with more cognitively demanding conversation types, participants were slower to react to a crossing opportunity, chose smaller crossing gaps, and allocated less visual attention to the peripheral regions of the scene. The ability to make better crossing decisions improved with age, but no interaction with cell phone conversation type was found. The most prominent improvement was shown in ‘safety gap’; each age group maintained a longer gap than its predecessor younger age group. In accordance to the current study, it is safe to say that cell phone conversations can hinder child and adult pedestrians’ safety. Thereby, it is important to take those findings in account when aiming to train young pedestrians for road-safety and increase public awareness.

The simulator validation study confirms the simulator’s ability to correctly simulate the real road environment, and strengthens the reliability as a source for statistical Inference. The goal of this work was to investigate whether the Dome simulator successfully simulates typical pedestrian environment in a manner that will elicit people to act in the same manner as they would in the real world crossing situations. Data analysis shows that the simulator delivers more reliable results concerning speeds rather than distances. Questionnaires analyses show that the simulator’s faith to reality regarding the display, sound effect and perspective is medium.

Here is a fresh publication on Child pedestrians. We introduce here, for the first time, the Child-pedestrians Anticipate and Act Hazard Perception Training (CA2HPT), which is based on the same principles as our Act and AnticipateHazard Perception Training (AAHPT) for young novice drivers.

Highlights

Training utilized a conceptually innovative approach taken from the driving HP domain.

Trainees were found to be more aware of potential hazards related to restricted field of view relative to control

Child-pedestrians are responsive to training and actively detecting materialized hazards may enrich their ability to cross roads.

Abstract

Objective: Traffic collisions yield a substantial rate of morbidity and injury among child-pedestrians. We explored the formation of an innovative hazard perception training intervention – Child-pedestrians Anticipate and Act Hazard Perception Training (CA2HPT). Training was based upon enhancing participants’ ability to anticipate potential hazards by exposing them to an array of traffic scenes viewed from different angles.

Method: Twenty-four 7–9-year-olds have participated. Trainees underwent a 40-min intervention of observing typical residentialtraffic scenarios ina simulated dome projectionenvironment while engaging in a hazard detection task. Trainees were encouraged to note differences between the scenarios presented to them from separate angles (a pedestrian’s point-of-view and a higher perspective angle). Next,trainees and control group members were required to perform crossing decision tasks.

Results: Trainees were found to be more aware of potential hazards related to restricted field of view relative to control.

An example of an CAAHPT intervention scenario. (1) taken from a child-pedestrian’s POV (above) and (2) taken from a higher, less restricting angle (below). Note that in the dome facility, participants saw one perfect continuous image but here in the figure, the images are shown as three overlapping screens. White rectangle is given only for emphasis; not